DOES PRAYER BRING RESULTS?

 

 

Some argue that prayer doesn’t accomplish anything, since God is sovereign and will do what He wants to do according to His plan. However, the Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, challenged this “logic”:

 

·       In every action, just as in every prayer, you are trying to bring about a certain result; and this result must be good or bad. Why, then, do we not argue as the opponents of prayer argue, and say that if the intended result is good, God will bring it to pass without your interference, and that if it is bad, He will prevent it happening whatever you do? Why wash your hands? If God intends them to be clean, they’ll come clean without your washing them. If He doesn’t, they’ll remain dirty…however much soap you use. Why ask for the salt? Why put on your boots? Why do anything? https://redeeminggod.com/work-and-prayer-by-c-s-lewis/?fbclid=IwAR2AlUetPn7JQA_QTcW8PPt2o7gf8XuZTo8H2trFhpyFOYR9Npjsvt6PTrg

 

Lewis correctly reasoned that if prayer is ineffective, there is no reason to think that any form of obedience will be effective in bringing favorable results:

 

·       We know that we can act and that our actions produce results. Everyone who believes in God must therefore admit (quite apart from the question of prayer) that God has not chosen to write the whole history with His own hand. Most of the events that go on in the universe are indeed out of our control, but not all. It is like a play in which the scene and the general outline of the story is fixed by the author, but certain minor details are left for the actors to improvise. It may be a mystery why He should have allowed us to cause real events at all, but it is no odder that He should allow us to cause them by praying than by any other method.

 

Even if God has orchestrated all the future, this does not mean that our prayers and obedient decisions are not effectual. I’d like to suggest that He uses our freewill prayers and actions to accomplish His purposes. Lewis acknowledged that we too have a vital role to play:

 

·       Pascal says that God “instituted prayer in order to allow His creatures the dignity of causality.” It would perhaps be truer to say that He invented both prayer and physical action for that purpose. He gave us small creatures the dignity of being able to contribute to the course of events in two different ways. He made the matter of the universe such that we can (in those limits) do things to it; that is why we can wash our own hands and feed or murder our fellow creatures.

 

The Bible is an invitation to partake, in a meaningful way, in the works and intentions of our Lord. Of course, this reasoning coincides with the counsel of Scripture that prayer does accomplish God’s purposes:

 

·       The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. (James 5:16–18)

 

Is prayer ineffectual? Only when we ask for things that are not against the Lord’s will:

·       You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:3)

 

But does this mean that our prayers can change God’s mind? If God is omniscient, even of all future events, we and our prayers cannot add anything to His knowledge. Therefore, we offer Him nothing new to consider or to persuade God to change His mind. However, it is still true that if we do not ask, we “do not receive.”